Pineapple Wine
by Uncle Slitmouth
Summary: Looking back years later, Devin's a bit embarrassed about his silly crush on Vladimir Von Helson.


**A/N: **This story is the result of the NPC Slash Challenge, and I was, suffice to say, a bit startled when I rolled this pairing. Additional notes are on my profile. Enjoy!

**Pineapple Wine**

* * *

I was becoming increasingly aware of Vladimir Von Helson's pants.

I do not know exactly when I discovered that the man that I imagined looked like Von Helson actually was the esteemed and very attractive millionaire, but by the time he glared at me, I knew for certain. Had I not seen those wonderfully mismatched eyes glower from a thousand newspaper articles? I quickly averted my gaze downwards, which was not a particularly smart thing to do. If one wants to reassure the man you have been mentally undressing for the past two hours that you are really not a complete pervert, it is best if one doesn't subsequently stare at his crotch. Despite numerous altercations in bars , mostly of the straight kind, resulting from accidentally doing this, it still remains a terribly bad habit that I can not seem to break. Personally, I blame Lance. I do not know how exactly he relates to this unfortunate tendency, but I find that he is the cause of most annoying things in my life. Though as of late, I have found that he is far less bothersome than normal. I imagine that it has something to do with the fact that I'm doing him, but one never knows for sure.

So there I was in a slightly seedy gay bar in the company of a grumpy street punk and a very drunk stripper, a glass of pineapple wine in one hand and a broken bullwhip in the other, staring at the pants of the man I had publicly despised and inwardly been enamored with for the last five years. Alas, I believe that I may have been blushing so slightly as well, an affliction that seems to have been cured now by my ink. It always seemed to scare people, so it is just as well that none can see it now. His belt buckle was the object of my attention, and there is no doubt that he figured that a certain thing in the general vicinity of that area was what held my gaze. To be honest, there was nothing special about it. The buckle, my friend, not his cock, which I am not well-acquainted with enough to judge whether it was special or not. It was, in fact, a wholly unremarkable belt buckle, even though it probably cost more than I make in a month. It was shiny, it buckled his belt, and it caught my eye. My word, I was too embarrassed to look him in the eye, so I looked him in the crotch. I do wish I knew how my mind works.

I do not know how long my gaze remained there before I realized what I was staring at. An eternity, I would think. There were definite stages. At first, I was far too dazed by his recognition of me to even realize what I was looking at, and then I was far too embarrassed to give a damn. After that, there was a small twinge of one thing or another that told me that something was off, though I knew not what. I became gradually aware of his buckle and his pants, and then it hit me like a faster than a dive-bombing hummingbird attacking a rival male: I was staring at Vladimir Von Helson's pants. I have never been much for societal rules, but there are three things one must never do. You don't sit on Liam of Aekea's couch, you don't throw rocks at halos, and you don't stare at Vladimir Von Helson's pants. I had just broken one of the three rules that keeps the universe together, and as all the blood rushed out of my face, I realized that I had lost the ability to stop doing it. His pants were my universe, and how I wished that the universe would go ahead and end. Luckily, my grumpy street punk saved me with a bottle cap to the arm.

"You're doin' it again. Stop doing that." Natasha grumbled, flicking another bottle cap at Lance, who was currently having a love affair with her beer. She and vampires are alike in two regards: you don't want to run into either of them at two o'clock in the morning and they're both drink-possessive. "Seriously, I know this place is full of blokes who want to get it on, but you've been checking out that guy for the last hour and he's just not into you. Uh, besides, he's way too old for you."

"You're one to talk about older men with all that carrying on with Mr. Serious." I quipped, regretting it when I remembered the reason why we were in this hole of a bar in the first place. Alcohol tends to make me forget things like common sense. "Err…sorry. I forgot that he, you know, I shouldn't mention Edmund…-"

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Devin. I love you, but come on. I'm not some little chickie who gets all weepy when you mention my exes. I'm fuckin' Natasha, the Natasha. Visigoths are scared of me."

"So are regular goths." Lance chirped, reaching for Natasha's beer again. Alas, I am afraid that my current boyfriend has all the common sense of a lemming or a high fashion designer. He was rewarded with the elbow to the forehead and a promise that next time she'd aim a bit lower.

"Anyway," she continued. "Since when are you interested in guys like that? Man's got to be fifty at the youngest."

"I never said I was interested in him, okay?" I lied quickly. Oh, I fear it was too quickly. Lance chuckled, and snatched the whip out of my hands. It was his, after all. I do not know why he had brought it with him, but there are many things one never quite knows for sure, like whether or not giant squid really lurk off the coast of Isle de Gambino and what logarithms are for. Those questions used to haunt me in the night, but now I amuse myself by questioning the nature of reality. At least with that one, no one will make fun of you if you do not have a certain answer, because they don't know either.

"Man, seriously man, I mean seriously man, I mean yeah, you'd do him, I'd do him, Natasha would too, am I right?" Lance said with the sort of cheerful certainty that only the very young or the very smashed have. For that remark, Natasha dumped the rest of her beer into his drink: something frothy and obscenely fruity that he stole from the bartender's boyfriend when neither were looking. That was not a particularly smart thing to do, for now she had no beer and he ended up liking the combination. Natasha has particular taste in men, you see. She only likes ones who everyone is convinced is not her type, and she is very affronted when people suggest that she might have an interest in someone. It's just as well: her friends have a habit of pointing out people just like herself, and there's only enough space in a room for one Natasha.

"You don't do Vladimir Von Helson," said your humble narrator, cringing at the vulgarity of the idea. My Vladimir wasn't the sort of man one had sex with or even made tender love to. He was a cold idol of marble and diamond standing in a museum case: something to look at and adore but never touch.

"Yeah well, you would."

"Wait, who? That rich bitch is here?" If one does not do Vladimir Von Helson, one certainly does not call him a bitch. It is surely a fundamental law of reality, the universe, and things in general. However, Natasha is the sort of person who has a flagrant disregard for unwritten rules and isn't on good terms with most of the written ones. She had a love-hate relationship with the object of my attraction: she loved to hate him. I suppose he stood for everything she rebelled against: him a man of old money and tradition, and she a creature of heavy metal and ten-gold tennis shoes. She read about his business dealings in the thick newspapers we stole from the vendors to make cheap hats with for the hell of it, watched his limousines drift by from the Durem street corners, heard strange rumours about him from the maids as we snuck into the Helson Magnificent to wash our rags in the hotel's laundry room. Natasha hated him. In that year, Vladimir was her favourite obsession, and mine too. "You telling a joke?"

So she had caught me. One can hide secrets from lovers, but never from best friends. I nodded mutely, and pointed him out, feeling in my gut that I was going to regret this.

"You know what? That does look like him," Natasha said. "Do you think that maybe he really-"

"Yeah, I'm certain," I said quietly, trying to ignore the accusing glare that she would surely be giving me. It's best not to openly check out someone that you're supposed to hate. There was a long pause before Natasha broke the silence.

"Why's he here?" She asked with a mixture of disdain and curiosity. I took a sip of my wine and tried to look knowledgeable. It hadn't occurred to me why Vladimir would be here of all places, only that he was here. A gay bar in North Durem is the last place to expect one of the richest men in Gaia and especially not one with hordes of women all clamoring the be his next wife. I watched him for a minute, watched him and his glass of scotch. He looked so elegant drinking or glaring or talking to the white-haired man at his side. I hated his bodyguard the moment he said something that made my Vladimir chuckle.

"He," Lance said, downing the rest of his drink. "is probably getting it on with that guy."

"Everyone knows that, stupid," Natasha grumbled, finally realizing her lack of beer. She really does like Lance, but earlier that night, she would have killed anyone who even brushed up against her. That is the byproduct of catching your rich, elegant lover in an affair with your younger sister. I do not think Natasha has spoken to Vanessa ever since. "But why is he here, and why were you lookin' at him like that, Devin of mine?" Ah, I knew she was going to ask that, sooner or later.

"That's Vladimir Von Helson. I could not help but look," said I.  
"Yeah, I know. He's the capitalistest of the capitalists, The Man and all that, not a nice guy at all, didn't tip Ruby when she waitressed for him, bastard." Everything she said was true, and alas, I knew it all too well. How often did I decry his ecology-destroying business dealings? But Vladimir the fantasy was different from Von Helson the man. Oh, Vladimir did become an idol over those five years, something everlasting and unattainable to fill the void in my heart. In my mind, he was always the Vladimir that made society ladies blush when thinking of his face. He was a perfect gentleman that always had a witticism when wanted and a verse of poetry when needed. His hair was ebony and featherlike in its softness, his skin was the palest silk, and his eyes were fiery garnets and moonstones. He never stumbled, never faltered, his clothes were always immaculate and his cape always swished. In my mind, he would have been a perfect gentleman and the most passionate of lovers. He would always know when the time was right for a moonlight rendezvous, and when he played the piano -for I believed wholeheartedly that Von Helson surely had to play the piano- his fingers would glide from key to key with the nimbleness of those of a master painter at work upon his canvas. My heart half believed that he'd renounce his hotels and law firms and whisk me away to the secret cottage in the forest that surely he had: the elegant capitalist with an incubus streak in him and yours truly, the big, punk socialist that parents warned their teenagers never to become and small children instinctively adored. Our biggest and only arguments would be over books, politics, and philosophy, the only three things worth arguing about. Those thoughts that flitted in my imagination whenever I saw his face on the televisions or newspapers were silly at best, impossible, a grocery store novella in their triteness. Forgive me, I was only a kid. I've gotten better. It was a long while before I answered, mostly because I was idly plotting the best way to kill that manservant of his without leaving a trace for the greens to find. Lance is frighteningly perceptive when drunk sometimes, or maybe no one pays attention when he's sober. Mr. Whitehair brushed up against my Vladimir ever so slightly in a way that was a bit too familiar for mere boss-bodyguard relations. That kiss that almost looked like a bite was probably a bit too familiar too.

"I would think that he is here because he and his manservant are thirsty and in need of a drink before setting out to have a wild and passionate time," hissed I, downing my wine. It burned like vodka and hydrochloric acid in my anger. The aftertaste was sickly sweet like rotten fruit. Nothing ever tastes right when all you can taste is the flavor of your dreams breaking. "Because Vladimir Von Helson can't be seen in his usual haunts with that bodyguard in his arms if he still wants all those rich ladies to marry him and give him their souls, just so he can divorce them two years later." There, the balance was restored: a little rage neutralizes a lot of amorousness. Natasha had followed my gaze: she knew why I felt like my heart was turning to charcoal with the white-hot fire of a million crushed daydreams.

"So, uh, you can go talk to him if you want. He's not exactly bad looking. Still a complete asshat though," Natasha said in her gentlest tone possible. Her gentlest tone possible is still as cocky as a prizefighter.

"No," said I quickly. "Hey, you know, let's groove on out of this fine establishment. Something tells me that you're not gonna get laid unless we hit that new girlbar down on Avogadro Avenue, or Charlie's place if you want to mess with some frat boys."

"I'd rather bust their windows. Come on, let's fly."

So we left, and that was that. We just got up and left. A grumpy street punk, a very drunk stripper, and I, completely pissed off at a man that I had never met for ruining a relationship I never had, set out into the night to do deeds that I certainly hope are balanced out now by all the community service and free tattoos, or else I fear that I shall have bad karma the rest of my life. I didn't go back to try to talk to him, didn't even look back. I couldn't, you see. I had harbored a juvenile crush on Vladimir for five years of my life, an infatuation based more off his beard than off his mind. I've grown older and more wiser since, and what has a man's face to do with his character? But I wasn't then, you see. Yours truly was another lost and lonely and hurt kid with a cause to live by but no one to live for, still caught between the nest of conflicting ideas that hit you once you turn twenty or so: optimistic hope versus cold, unpleasant reality, the nature of love and lust, imagination or the truth, and all that jazz.

And I suppose cold, unpleasant reality, the truth, and all that jazz hit me right then in there in that bar that had seen better days as I watched a man that I both despised and adored as the sounds of techno music drifted in from the club next door, watched a man I almost but never knew talking to a person whom none knew that he knew his boss like that, except for all those who did know and that was just about everyone. In that moment, I despised that bodyguard who had never done me any wrong, but most of all, I hated him.

Because, after all, he was really more businessman than gentleman.  
Because he didn't quote poetry.  
Because his hair was plain black with streaks of white.  
Because his eyes were just red and grey.  
Because sometimes he misspoke and the papers harped on it.  
Because he was too busy running an economic empire to play piano.  
Because he didn't have a cottage in the forest.  
Because he had been married over five times and had three known children.  
Because he was trying to cover up a fling with his bodyguard.  
Because he would never give me the time of day.  
I hated him because he was Vladimir Von Helson and always would be, no matter how much I tried to pretend he was just a bit different, more perfect, oh, someone else entirely.  
Forgive me, I was just a kid.

So, we walked away into a strange night of mischief of the slightly dangerous, very much illegal sort, and had a really bitching good time with a few cans of spray paint and a baseball bat. Some call it vandalism, but I called it modern art. And so, my dear friend, I missed my one chance to talk to the man who had infatuated and infuriated me so. For you see, the next day he was dead and so was that bodyguard turned lover of his. Poisoned, or so they said: the media skirted about the specifics. I guess it's just as well that I never got a chance to talk to him, because the next time anyone saw him, word got out that he murdered his wife and anyway, he was leading a giant vampire army against the rest of Gaia.

That's just not cool, man.


End file.
